A Canadian newspaper has reported that the contractor handling this year’s ferry service between Portland and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, has found a vessel to replace the failed MV Nova Star that would be similar to its predecessor, The Cat.

The replacement ship is the USNS Puerto Rico, a catamaran about two-thirds the length and nearly twice as fast as the Nova Star, the newspaper reported.

The catamaran that will replace the Nova Star was launched in 2007 by Austal USA and originally was used as a high-speed ferry among the Hawaiian islands. (AP Photo/Agustin Tabares)

In December, Geoff MacLellan, the province’s minister of transportation, said the government was unable to complete a contract with Bay Ferries until a specific ferry had been secured, because the ship’s design and amenities would determine the service’s expenses and revenues.

However, MacLellan said he was optimistic that Bay Ferries would find a ship, and that the government and Bay Ferries would agree on a contract for this summer. Nova Scotia intends to subsidize the service but has yet to say how much money it will spend.

SPACE FOR COMMERCIAL TRUCKS?

Canadian groups have criticized the provincial government, led by Nova Scotia’s Liberal Party, for failing to complete a deal for continued ferry service. The groups said Monday that they won’t comment on the adequacy of the USNS Puerto Rico until it is officially confirmed.

Angie Zinck, a spokeswoman for the Progressive Conservative Party of Nova Scotia, said one of the big concerns is whether the new ferry would be able to accommodate commercial trucks, specifically tractor-trailers.

According to its specifications, the Puerto Rico is 349 feet long, considerably smaller than the 528-foot-long Nova Star. Its maximum speed is 40 mph, compared with the Nova Star’s 24.6 mph. The catamaran was launched in 2007 by Austal USA and originally was used as a high-speed ferry among the Hawaiian islands. Its current owner is listed as the U.S. Maritime Administration.

Originally sold for $88 million, it can carry up to 866 passengers and 282 cars, and its vehicle decks can be reconfigured to accommodate 20 tractor-trailers or buses and 90 cars. The Nova Star’s capacity was 1,212 passengers and 336 cars and/or up to 38 commercial trucks or buses.

Zinck declined to comment on whether a capacity of 20 commercial trucks would be sufficient.

“I think government should first tell us what boat they have secured before we comment on the specifics of a rumored vessel,” she said via email. “We will continue to work with the local truckers as the government confirms details – but we do believe the first step is for government to tell us what vessel will be in place.”

SMALLER FERRY, FASTER CROSSING

In a Progressive Conservative news release, Brian Reynolds, owner of B. Reynolds Trucking in Port La Tour, Nova Scotia, said he has become increasingly concerned that trucks are not going to be allowed on the ferry.

“This ferry announcement is as important to our industry as it is for the tourism industry,” he said. “If the ferry being considered will not take trucks, we will have a very serious problem in Southwest Nova.”

In a January interview with the trade publication Truck News, Reynolds said he hauls fresh seafood and that getting it to market quickly is essential for his business.

A ferry the size of the Puerto Rico can make the crossing much faster than the 10-hour drive between Portland and Yarmouth. Even on the Nova Star, which took 10 hours to travel between the two ports, Portland city records show that tractor-trailers took 400 trips from May through October of 2014 and 636 trips from June through September 2015.

The Nova Scotia government chose not to renew Nova Star Cruises’ contract for the Portland-to-Yarmouth service for 2016.

Mark Amundsen, president and CEO of Nova Star Cruises, operated the service for two years before the government canceled the contract in October because its vessel, the Nova Star, carried far fewer passengers and cost the government much more money than expected.

HISTORY OF FINANCIAL STRUGGLES

Amundsen predicted the Nova Star would carry 100,000 passengers a season. Instead, it carried 59,000 passengers in 2014, its inaugural season, and 52,000 in its second season, a 12 percent decline.

The province spent 28.5 million Canadian dollars on the service in the Nova Star’s first season. In 2015, the government limited its subsidy to $13 million Canadian, equal to nearly $10 million at current exchange rates.

The service’s financial troubles led a federal court to order the seizure of the Nova Star in October, after several companies complained that they were owed more than $3 million.

Nova Star Cruises paid most of its debts and left Portland Harbor on Dec. 9. Owned by Singapore-based ST Marine, it is now operated by Morocco-based Inter Shipping as a chartered ferry between Tangier, Morocco, and Algeciras, Spain.

Nova Scotia’s government announced Oct. 29 that Bay Ferries was the preferred candidate for the Yarmouth-to-Portland route, which the province sees as essential to its tourism industry.

Bay Ferries operated The Cat, a high-speed ferry between Yarmouth and Portland, until canceling the service on Dec. 18, 2009, after the provincial government refused to continue its subsidy because it was losing too much money.

The Cat was 319 feet long and carried up to 760 passengers and 200 vehicles. In 2011 it was renamed Hai Xia Hao and it now operates as a ferry between Taichung, Taiwan, and Pingtan Island, China.

Beginning with the 2006 and continuing into the 2007 operating seasons, the Nova Scotia government provided an annual subsidy of $1.5 million to Bay Ferries to offset declining passenger revenue and increased fuel costs. The ferry operator had been seeking about $6 million for its 2010 season, which the government rejected, leading to cancellation of the service.

Bay Ferries has a main office in Charlottetown and a smaller office in Halifax. It is a subsidiary of Northumberland Ferries Ltd., also based in Charlottetown. Bay Ferries operates the Fundy Rose, which has daily crossings between Digby, Nova Scotia, and Saint John, New Brunswick.

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the new boat goes almost as fast as the Cat, think they might have time for a stop in bar harbor now?

notspot

Price it right and it just might work.

BHShaman

That makes for an interesting proposition. We were not interested in being stuck on a mini cruise ship expected to gamble and buy drinks. We want to get to N.S. and site see, not stare at the ocean. Faster time just might make it worth it.

shooter777

Let’s hope LePage sticks to his guns in not spending tax payer money on this thing. There is a reason why there has been a void for several years and why last year failed, a very simple economic theory Supply and demand. The demand is simply not there and to attract passengers reduced prices are necessary making profitability impossible to achieve. It failed in Bar Harbor, it failed in Portland. No one wants to investigate Boston as a departure point. Good luck.

Calli Sol

I wonder if Christy will look for Angus’s or Susan’s or Chelly’s fingerprints on the bailout appropriation?

Mefrfiter

Painted Navy gray now wonder if they have time to repaint it?

Calli Sol

Long history…went bankrupt and ‘rescued’ by the Navy. High speed roll on, roll off. Maybe they will dock in Halifax instead of a half + hour away. Wonder how long it would take to get to Puerto Rico?

Mark Bickford

They aren’t going to dock in Halifax, as that misses the whole point of the service. The NS Government isn’t funding this to bring people to NS in general, it’s doing it to bring them and their money to Yarmouth (essentially their Washington County) whether they want to go there or not.

I wish Bay Ferries well, but the “fast ferry” model didn’t work well the last time. Even the report the NS government commissioned before the Nova Star recommended the “cruise ferry” model, on the grounds that there aren’t enough people actually wanting to go to Nova Scotia to make it remotely cost-effective, so the operator needs the extra revenue from round-trippers who go for the mini-cruise. I think that Nova Star’s problem was that the ship was too expensive to run, so they priced themselves out of the local day-trip market and the experience wasn’t worth the money for the higher-income folks in Boston they marketed to. If you go back and look at the Scotia Prince brochures, etc. online, you can see they were all about selling a young adult clientele on the affordable “mini-cruise.” I don’t know if it’s possible to replicate that business model these days on modern equipment, but I have my doubts that “just transportation” will work in its place.

Calli Sol

So your opinion is that there is no reason why this one will succeed when the others have failed?
I agree; nothing different.
What really annoys me is that a lot of people got bailed out by a Defense appropriation; perhaps covering up an insider purchase by the Obama administration.

Maybe I’ve missed something, but where has the Navy gone and bailed out a bankrupt buyer of the result of one of their bad decisions?
…this started out as a fast Marine and equipment carrier that ‘wasn’t needed’, sold off non-competitively(???) to a company owned by who???, which attempted to start a profitable interisland service inHawaii, Failed and got rescued by the Navy via a White House approved Defense Appropriations bill; and now it’s back on the blocks???

WTF..

kenindy

That is a nice theory (the White House approval) – I would love to see the the evidence.

Calli Sol

Ever try looking for it yourself? ….but would you even know what to look for?

kenindy

You made the claim. I have found no evidence of it. You punt it back. Ergo, you are making it up.

Calli Sol

White House submitted the Defense Appropriations act, yet you found no evidence of it? You don’t have a clue about how the Federal government works; yet you comment incessantly? Do you have COMPULSIVE POSTING DISORDER?

Get your facts straight, and learn how to make a case that does not fall flat on its face.

Cat Eldridge

I don’t remember where I read it but the story is that the Hawaiian operator defaulted on their federal transportation loans and that resulted in the two ships they owned being turned over to the Federal Maritime Service who in turn loaned them to the Navy. The Navy used them in support of various disaster assistance operations.

No craft is going to be exactly what you or I think should be used, but I think this craft could work. And the area of Nova Scoti that it docks in badly needs the tourist and ship servicing monies that this will bring in during the summer season.

markusinger

That “mini-cruise” was largely marketed around gambling. Gambling is no longer the draw, so what is?

Coastal Existentialist

This new ship seems a wiser choice, just based on size and capacity. I’ve traveled all four ships (soon to be four anyway) and the operate from two distinctly different theories of transportation. The Nova Star and its earlier predecessor, Scotia Princess, were vessels that the time on the ship was as important as getting to NS…The Cat and this new ship focus on NS as the goal vs the voyage. Think of it as the difference between a limo and a NYC Transit Bus….they each get you where you’re headed but with different levels of comfort.

markusinger

This is a completely different world now for this industry. During the Scotia Prince days, people rode the ships largely to gamble. Back then you had no Atlantic City, no Foxwoods, no Mohegan Sun, no Oxford, no Bangor,no high stakes Indian beano. Now those all exist, and people have little or no reason to take these ferries if their sole reason is to gamble. This also means very few buses as well, no matter how much marketing is done. The real question is what is the real marketability of Nova Scotia to travelers on the East Coast. Truck traffic with a capacity of only twenty rigs is not going to be a big money maker either. Our company and I look forward to working with the new operators to make their effort a success.

Coastal Existentialist

You’re probably correct. I just never went to gamble….always just like a good boat ride plus I’m Canadian with family in the maritimes which is why I’ll travel on this new ship too vs. driving.

poseidonofscarborough

That’s an interesting analogy. I hope it’s more like Concord Trailways to Boston than NYC transit bus because I plan to finally make this voyage once the new boat is up and running. All these years I’ve wanted to do it, but the stateroom cost, the length of the voyage, and dearth of good places to stay in NS always scared me off…

kenindy

Except bigger, with more vehicle capacity.

xcalibur1066

How do you keep it up? It must be exhausting being so right all the time! The written “oneupmanship” is really tough work. I bet you sleep really well at night.

#LoveMeSomeKenindy #YouSayOneISayTen

xcalibur1066

Wow.. Your prowess and mastery of the internet is simply AMAZING!!! Where did you learn such skills?

#LoveMeSomeKenindy #ICanGoogle #WikiIsRight

EddyL

So how long is the trip one way???

Coastal Existentialist

Figure 6 hours pier to pier…..bring a book.

poseidonofscarborough

Where did you get that figure from? I hope you are right!

Coastal Existentialist

180nm by 6 hrs is 30 knots per hr. Article noted the speed of this boat at 40 knots….I also seem remember that was about how long the cat took to make the crossing.

poseidonofscarborough

Thank you for that information!

Coastal Existentialist

You are welcome….

poseidonofscarborough

What, you also weren’t satisfied with “much faster” ? 😉

MCHaye

I hope the ride quality will be better than The Cat. Heard from a few Cat passengers that it was rough as hell and that they never wanted to do it again.

Coastal Existentialist

I didn’t find The Cat ‘tough’ just a bit boring….a bit like being on a packed 747 headed out on a nonstop flight to Berlin.

Mefrfiter

I rode the Cat over to NS, I enjoyed the ride. maybe they went on a rough day out on the Bay.

Old Salt

With the presently Low Fuel Costs, already previously configured as a High Speed Ferry, sounds doable. The tough part is the Fuel Consumed an the High Maintenance needed. Ticket pricing will also be a factor.

ChuckGG

This vessel looks very similar (same boatbuilder – Austral) as the ill-fated ferry service between Rochester, NY and Toronto, Canada. I sailed on that vessel several times and it was wonderful – fast, comfortable, very relaxing. It hit speeds of 55 mph and if you don’t think standing on the deck at 55 mph is fast, try sticking your head out the window of your car at that speed.

The service went bankrupt, unfortunately. However, I don’t think I ever saw a more poorly managed operation. It was under capitalized. There are too many reasons why it failed but had the proper permits been obtained and the trucking service aspect issues resolved and operational connections (inter-modal) been arranged, I suspect it could have succeeded. As I said, poorly managed.

I hope this service catches on and is successful. For me, the ride alone is worth the trip. I’m looking forward to sailing aboard her.

Free D-Money and Shifty!!

i remember that ferry, i grew up nearby in upstate NY–the other problem with that ferry was there was no demand for it–nobody in toronto wanted to visit rochester and rochester itself couldnt sustain the ferry on its own

Bob Rossi

Plus, you can drive from Rochester to Toronto, and in only 3 hours. Tough to do that from Portland to Nova Scotia.

ChuckGG

Yes, but I can tell you that if you are driving from DC to Toronto which I often did, the ride to Rochester was smooth sailing. Then, I got aboard the Spirit of Toronto (I think it was called), rested, had some dinner, relaxed, and two hours later I was in downtown Toronto. That run from Buffalo to the eastern side of Toronto was a chore – monstrous traffic, Customs, and all that. The ferry was a real job and not bad priced, either.

ChuckGG

Probably true but the thing was full when I sailed on it. They lost a lot of money as they could not get the paperwork done for hauling trucks which would have made them (I recall) income of $18,000 per day. They also could not get the ship reflagged as a US carriers and thus it had to have an escort going in/out of port at Rochester at an exorbitant price per day. As I mentioned, very poorly managed.

Thomas Harmon

interesting… with that kind of speed it could probably go direct to Halifax in 10 hours, a city far, far bigger and more important than Yarmouth. this would create a more exciting connection? (or maybe they don’t want Halifax residents spending their money in Portland)

Cat Eldridge

I noted above that the Canadian and Nova Scotia see this as economic development for that relatively poor area of the province. If it went to Halifax instead, it would serve no purpose from their viewpoint.

Thomas Harmon

then therein lies the problem. why would one visit the southern half of nova scotia when maine is approached first with choices like portland, boothbay harbor, rockland-camden, and acadia nat. park? (voted the most liked nat. park in the nation from a recent ABC news poll) ive heard halifax is a great city and perhaps that should be the new focus for the endeavor. you cant make a tourism phenomena from advertising when the place doesnt hold up, and yarmouth and the surrounding area do not.

David Orbeton

The Cat bounced along so everyone got sea sick. The crew called the boat the “Vomit Comet”! Being anther catamaran I recomend taking Dramamine before boarding.

Aurora F.

Soooo….. If the CAT couldn’t do it without heavy yearly subsidy, and this ship is slightly larger… How’s that gonna work?! I hope they are just picking this ship to fill the void this season and plan on having a smaller, viable ship available for the 2017 season.

Robert R. Wagner

Note that this boat, originally named “Alakai”, was one of two ferrys added to the Hawaiian SuperFerry service, which subsequently went belly up. Although it is much more fuel efficient than was the Novastar, it still may need a substantial subsidy from the Nova Scotia government.

kash65

New ferry. Check. Now if they would only point it someplace where people want to go and at a reasonable price.